Ethical dilemmas of PR professional

Being PR prefessional isn't always easy. There are many ethical problems that may occur. It would be easy to be perfectly ethical if the company asks you to act so. But unfortunately in many cases the head of the company wants PR professional to lie or hide some important facts that may damage the reputation of the organization. Then PR person has to decide whether to be ethical or loyal to his or her job. 

If PR professional decides to be ethical and honest in that kind of situation, there is a risk of loosing a job. But being not honest can be even worse. These lies almost always come out and then the reputation of the company is certainly damaged and so is the reputation of PR person. So the best solution in the situation will be to convince your boss going the ethical way. Being honest about the problems from the beginning is much better than lies coming out later. Then the organization has to deal with real crisis.

There has been discussion that PR professionals should be ethical guardians in organisation. I think it's right because PR professional's work is most visible for general publics and that makes it even compulsory for them to be very ethical. But not only because of the publics.  "Public relations is the comparatively recent expression by business of the old precept ‘do unto others as you would have them do to you’ . . . To say of a man he is ‘a good chap’ means the same thing to all Englishmen" Jacquie L'Etang has written. Company should always think about why they exist and how to be beneficial for more people outside of the organization. Decisions should be done reckon with Corporate Social Responsibility. 

I support rather utilitarian standpoint, because rules should be done in favour of people. So not following rules, but making sure as many people as possible are happy, should be the priority. 

International Public Relations Association has written an ethics code for PR people. I read IPRA's code of ethics, where I think all the most important clauses are in. If you follow this code, there shouldn't occur problems about being ethical.